[Suggestion] Change the way a match starts

[d-albrecht]

In the current state where all you can do is play against AI, this isn't really an issue as even the smartest AI has flaws, but given that we might see a PvP mode at some point, and because even the AI can screw you up some times, I wanted to point out a problem with the game and suggest some ideas of how to improve the situation.

I want to say upfront that I don't know the details of Slay by heart, hence, I won't make any statements of whether something (both the situation we have today or my suggestions) is true to the original game. Still, I believe that we shouldn't stick with bad behavior, just because Slay at some point in time decided that this was the way to go.

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Because even the smallest kingdoms should be able to act in the first round, you start with five money per tile. That was a smart decision (by Slay). But as soon as we consider trees, this situation becomes illogical. Because in the first turn (at least for this game) the game doesn't subtract money for tiles with trees. So, a two tile kingdom with a tree can still act in the first turn. While I understand the idea here to not further penalize kingdoms with trees (given that it wasn't your fault that there was a tree), this edge case somewhat breaks the principle behind blocked tiles.

The bigger problem is your initial money if another player captured tiles of your kingdom before you played the first time. If an opponent captures some "border-tile" (aka tiles that not connect parts of your kingdom), you start with one less money. If an opponent cuts off larger portions, you start off with that amount of money less. UNLESS of course, some of the cut off tiles had trees on them, then you don't lose money for cut off tiles with trees. Personally I think that this is even more wrong than both situations on their own.

If some opponent destroys your capital, you start with money equivalent to the number of tiles at the start of your turn. The same happens if a cut off portion forms a new kingdom. So, simply by having your capital being destroyed, you lose out on the majority of your initial money and in almost all cases have no way to actually play in the first turns (not just the very first turn).

See these two images of the same level being shown as it was displayed on the level selection screen and when I was able to play for the first time:

The kingdom in the middle part starts with 25 money because a tree tile was captured. The kingdom in the left has 10 money (despite the tree). The former 4-tile-kingdom in the bottom part starts with 18 money. This level doesn't have any examples of kingdoms with destroyed capitals, but I'm confident that my description of these situations were accurate as well.

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Here are my suggestions:

• This would only solve the lesser issue, but we could exclude trees from the initial game generation. Trees then would only appear from gravestones, capitals, or neighboring trees.
• As the first suggestion would more or less remove a huge chunk of the trees that will be visible in a game, we could do that but bring back that some trees appear randomly.
• Generate some units similarly to how trees are randomly generated. That would limit the chance of opponents capturing your tiles in the first place. And then subtract the costs from your initial money balance.
• Alternatively you could let the players play a set-up round. In this round you can spend money on castles and units but the only valid placements are the tiles of your own kingdom. So, in the blue five-tile kingdom in the middle, I could have placed a peasant next to the tree, to protect every tile, or cut the tree. But I couldn't connect the single blue tile south-east of the kingdom, as I wasn't allowed to capture the yellow or green tiles in between. Only starting with the second round all players are allowed to play offensively and capture any new tiles.

I'm not sure if that were all the ideas I had or if I forgot some, but I think that covers a lot of my ideas.

The thing is that I understand that the player order is related to the kingdom sizes of all players to counteract the unbalanced random creation, but if some opponent manages to destroy your capital, this puts you in a really bad position that this kingdom rarely is able to recover from.

[Sesu8642]

If an opponent captures some "border-tile" (aka tiles that not connect parts of your kingdom), you start with one less money. If an opponent cuts off larger portions, you start off with that amount of money less.

I don't really see the problem here. Compared to the initially generated money, the income in the first turn is not that relevant. But I do see the problem with capitals being destroyed before the first turn of a player.

I wouldn't want the first round to have special rules because that makes the game harder to understand for new players.

What if the initial savings were created when the first turn of each player starts? That way, each kingdom would have enough money to do something, even if it was split previously or the capital was destroyed.

[d-albrecht]

The quoted "problem" with slightly reduced money for cut off tiles wasn't the issue here. I just wanted to summarize all of it as best as I could. That a former 4-tile-kingdom now turned a 2-tile-kingdom having 18 money to spend is totally fine. And I totally see the problem with a differently structured first round. I'm not happy with any of my suggestions myself. These just were the only (and most promising) ideas I had at that time and I haven't come up with anything more viable since then. So, yeah, the situation isn't perfect and there is no easy and yet good solution yet.

Calculating the initial money balance "on demand" might not be the solution either. Yes, using this approach split 2-tile-kingdoms can do something. But the described former 4-tile-kingdom now turned a 2-tile-kingdom will start of with 10 money only. So, each tile cut off will decrease your money balance by 5 money, not just 1. That doesn't seem like a good thing, too.

The approach that could actually work but isn't ideal either is having some units automatically placed. Whether this placement would be random or somewhat algorithmically is still open. But I could imagine that every 4-tile-kingdom would have one unit placed, and for every 3 tiles more the algorithm places one more, or so. That meant that all large kingdoms would have more protection than just by the capital and therefore the risk of cut off tiles becomes smaller. And while you technically don't lose any money as the money is just turned into units, large kingdoms wouldn't start off with almost hundreds of money.

To conclude, The game isn't broken because of this, but it would be nice to see this improved in some way. But I don't have the solution myself. Hence, this ticket is more a place for discussion.

[Sesu8642]

I see. Multiplayer should of course have maps that are as fair as possible. There are several measures that can be taken to balance the starting conditions. Your idea of placing units is one of them. But I wouldn't want it for singleplayer because I expect some new players to be confused why there are units at the beginning of the game already. Alternatively, the amount of money can be altered or the kingdom size can be changed (more difficult) and probably many other things.

The main problem is probably that it is difficult to determine what a fair starting condition looks like. Since the players doing the first turns have an advantage, the other ones need a different advantage (like money or bigger kingdoms). But what would be the appropriate amount? The only idea I have is to have bots play many many games and check that the order of players can't be used to predict the winner. But even then individual games can still randomly favor one player.

A different idea that I have is to generate symmetrical maps. Assume a game with two players. When one player has a large kingdom on the left, the other one has a kingdom of the same size on the right. The only problem is that the player doing the first turn still has an advantage that needs to be balanced somehow.

Or maybe random maps simply don't really work in multiplayer. There could be a set of pre-defined maps that are known to be fair to choose from.

Having these really fair maps is mainly a concern for multiplayer though. However, I think that the problem of huge generated kingdoms should be addressed in singleplayer as well. The algorithm to generate the initial savings is taken from slay but I question whether it makes sense for FT with the generated maps. It might be better to cap the initial savings to 15 or even give every kingdom the same amount of money no matter the size.

[d-albrecht]

Oh, of course, I must have forgotten about this (my) older thread about the initial game state ;) But good to know that you are testing around with new ways to modify/adapt the given rule-set.

I had this idea the other day, that to limit the initial amount of money, you could also just change the parameters of the money function. Currently, we have: 5 times <tiles> + 0, but you could try out something like 3 times <tiles> + 6. This way, the "defensive aspect" would still hold (you were able to buy a castle for any 3-tile kingdom), but you would limit the "offensive aspect" (larger kingdoms couldn't rush you as easily). (And would be sort of a compromise between "give every kingdom the same" and the original Slay-way.)

This would (probably) be best without the current money cap, as I feel the money cap is more an annoyance than an actual improvement most of the time (and doesn't feel right). And - at least currently - the cap isn't considered by the player order, which would (from my point of view) be a prerequisite for the cap to be fair(er).

But that's just an(other) idea from me.

[Noodlemire]

I wouldn't want the first round to have special rules because that makes the game harder to understand for new players.

Personally, I actually like the idea of a set-up round, and I don't think it would be too confusing for new players, as long as you present it exclusively as a set-up phase, rather than "Round 1 but the rules are different".

[Sesu8642]

@Blop32 wrote in #4:

"However if there'd be one vote I could give for improving the game it would be an improved algorithm to create the levels. It seems random and once you get the hang of the game there are basically loads of seeds that are pretty pointless (in very hard mode). Either its a sure win or an inevitable loose. There are seeds where you can do whatever you want, it will lead to an overwhelmingly powerful enemy or vice versa.
Right now I end up browsing through several seeds and trying to evaluate if its an interesting one.
These could be some ideas for improvement:

• providing each party the same number of tiles and the same amount of units at the beginning (currently it seems number of tiles are evenly allocated but randomly placed. Those parties with several tiles in one block get an advantage in terms of number of units for the first round)
• somehow make sure each party gets the same advantages in terms of starting position. No idea how that could look like in detail. But one almost always wins when starting in a corner with a sufficiently large patch and one almost always looses when placed in the center (multiple front war...). Maybe provide encircled patches some extra bonus (additional tiles or units)
• The loose map density is pretty pointless with the current mechanics. Its basically a point an click scheme where one progresses linearly towards predictable victory or defeat. With ranged units or boats that could change the situation (but make the game overall more complicated. IMHO complexity emerging from simplicity is one of the main characteristics of the game that should be maintained)."

[Sesu8642]

I agree with the problems you identified.

About loose map density: I think that there can be some interesting situations when you have multiple options where to attack. But in general, I almost never play loose density myself for the same reasons. But since it's already implemented and doesn't really need any maintenance, I don't see many reasons to remove it. On the one hand, new players might play on a loose map and think that the game wasn't fun. On the other hand, some might enjoy loose maps and would be sad if I removed the option.